Some Random Stories from our Week

I have to share with all of you a short, but wonderful piece of Stephen and my life! Many of you only here a small portion of what gones on up here and most of what you here is little weekend adventures we take. Well it's Friday morning and I'm feeling the need to share some of the things that make up our crazy week. So enjoy:)
KBM has a skate trailer full of well, . . . skates and helmets. Anyway somehow it has become my job to make sure people get the skates and all that. Well I've come to dislike the skate trailer, mostly because every time I'm at the rink it is soooo cold. Well we were doing skating with one of our after school programs and it was not only extremely cold, but the wind gust were incredible, creating these white out conditions. Well I was trying to move to huge tubs of helmets from the skate trailer to the rink, when one of these gust came up. It completely flipped me around and did all it could to take the tubs from my grips. I held on for dear life only to then fall into the skate trailer. I wanted to cry, mostly from my frustration.
Stephen meets with kids throughout the week. Well he was meeting with one boy and they were trying to come up with a way to keep all the mean and angry thoughts away and they came up with this spray bottle that the boy had to spray to turn angry mean thoughts and things into happy nice thoughts. About mid week Stephen received this amazing e-mail from the boy, over joyed that this spray bottle was really helping keep all the scary stuff away!
Many people know Stephen has a wild imagination. Well he was taking a walk with another student he meets with and it happened to be very foggy. Now this boy is a tall kid, actually just as tall or taller than Stephen. Anyway Stephen started letting his imagination run wild, telling the boy they'd better be careful on their walk because with the dense fog it was probably they would get lost, or even separated. This boy took my husbands words very seriously and insisted that they hold hands. I can only imagine how cute it must have looked to see Stephen and this tall young man walking through the playground hand in hand.
We're in the mist of exciting days at the Mission. We're preparing to build a big Heritage Center (with a new gym!!) Well yesterday we were doing some preliminary digging and low and behold we dug up a big wooden box. What was in the box, you might ask? A horse! Yes, we dug up a horse and no, it was not one we had buried and can you believe it was in a horse casket. Amazing.
Another really big thing this week has been sickness. Alot of kids have been sick and it's the coming out of both directions sick (not fun at all!) I won't go into detail, but I caught it on Tuesday (made for a long day!) But besides from a little Kodiak Crud that Stephen and I have, we're doing ok!
Ok, well I know this was all very random, and there are so many more little stories, but this will have to do for now.

Ice!

I never thought that I would run on ice growing up.  It sounded impossible to me and had someone told me then that I would morning after morning wake before the sun to run for over an hour on ice I would have said they were crazy.  But that is exactly what I do and I've found that waking before the sun is much more difficult than running on ice. 

It started raining about mid week and our snow turned to thick sheets of ice.  Stephen, Bryant and I headed out to see some of the impressive ice that formed on Dead Man's Curve. Throughout most of the year water shoots from wholes in the thick black rock.  It always makes me thick of Moses and I wonder just how much more magnificent it must have been to see water come from that rock.  (Excuse my tangent).  Anyway the water that normally streams from these rocks has turned into ice walls.  Pretty impressive. 

Ice Fishing in Nebraska

While home we were extremely blessed by our families and friends!  Stephen even got a little ice fishing in!  

Nebraska and Alaska

I do not believe the Lord ever called Stephen and me out of Nebraska, when He called us to Alaska.  It has been a couple of weeks being back in Kodiak and I find myself often thinking about being at home over Christmas and how wonderful it was there and I'm sure life would be great for us if we lived there.  However there was a constant reminder of the work here at home and the purpose the Lord is playing out through our faithfulness to Him.  I'm learning daily how blessed we are as followers of Jesus.  He wants so badly to take us beyond what our human minds can fathom past our little corner of understanding and work miraculously in our lives.  

Stephen and me are called to follow after Christ.  He led us home at Christmas and it's for that reason the time was so sweet.  We are also very aware that life in Christ is not always humanly pleasing.  The tears shared between us and our family were some of the most difficult tears we've ever had.  There was a pain that left us overcome with sadness, but in that sadness the Lord was there.  He's peace transcends all our understanding and we grew in our relationship with Christ, not this world.  

So with this new year has

 come new work, new understandings and a relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  It is my prayer that He guides our every move, thought, and decision, whatever it may be.  

Prayer Request

As of course many of you know that Kodiak is a small tight knit community. Well, just yesterday a small plane went down here in Kodiak with a small carrier called Servant Air. Well the owner of the company is a member of our church and another one of the pilots is as well. Anyway, please remember the families of the people who died as well as those of us here in Kodiak. Church was extremely somber and difficult.
Here's a link with the story. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,320509,00.html

Home for the Holidays

Home for the Holidays.  I think that half of the joy of going home is anticipating it.  Stephen and I have been looking forward to Christmas in Nebraska since January 1, 2007.  There is just something unexplainable about being home.  We arrived in Omaha and were greeted by our beautiful niece and nephew Makenna and Liam.  It was just how I dreamt it would be (it really was).  Makenna came running up to me and jumped into my arms and didn't let go.  Oh, there's not a much better feeling than that.  Stephen and I loved every second of our time with our families.  We headed out to my parents farm first.  It felt perfect with the pine tree from the pasture and dogs at my feet.  F

or the Wellensiek big Christmas we had 6 dogs and I think 24 people.  It was the first time it felt like I was out at Grandpa and Grandma Wellensieks farm since they moved.

  

It was so wonderful to have some time with my sister too.  It's crazy to think about just how different things are now and how they will continue to change throughout the years.  We use to spend every day all day long together during Christmas break, it makes since looking back now that the Lord was giving us that time because he knew we'd both be called in different directions later.   I also had some great time with my cousin Julie.  Below is one of my new favorite pictures.  The moon was so bright that night we could see our shadows!  

 

Stephen and I did a lot of driving while at home and we really enjoyed the time on the road taking in the landscape. 

 Nebraska is really one of the most incredible places in the world.  

We made it back in time for the Christmas Eve service in Fremont.  I sang, Stephen played the trumpet and we were blessed to have Pastor John Dennert (he performed our wedding ceremony) there to give the Christmas devotion.  Christmas day the entire Foreman clan got together including our other amazing nephew and niece Lucas and Alexis.  It's so fun watching Lucas run around the house.  It really reminds me a lot of Stephen.  We had great food and priceless fellowship together.  Well there's much more that happened and many more pictures to share, but the jet lag is catching up to me and I need to rest my eyes!  

Wow, so much has happened throughout this wonderful Christmas season.  I will not even attempt to

 recollect all that happened throughout the past month, but I will try and hit on some of the highlights.  The first of them being the Mission's Currier & Ives "Old Fashion Christmas Celebration".  The start of January marks my three year anniversary at KBM but Christmas 2007 was my first Currier & Ives.  Oh, it was a cold weekend, but the Lord worked through each person involved to bring the community together to celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ.  There was a bonfire, hay rack rides with caroling, festooned horses that gave rides around a pasture lit with luminaries, a marionette performance, other old fashion Christmas dramatizations, 1,500 Christmas cookies, and all this culminated with the Shepherds (Stephen was the lead shepherd) who announced the good news to all the people of the birth of the Savior of the World (he did an amazing job).  It was unlike anything I had ever experienced at Christmas to watch the people head out to the barn and gaze upon this child.  We had a young couple with their own month old baby play the part.  The Spirit of the Lord was so present as I watch this month and father care for their child.  It was such meager conditions for our Redeemer, but it was perfect.  

While Stephen and I were extremely tired heading home that night, we were filled with such joy.  We are blessed to live and work in a place like the Mission.  We also were anticipating our upcoming trip home the next evening.